The face of criminal justice in Dutchess County could dramatically change in the next five years.

Dutchess County officials are considering a wide-ranging plan that would build a new, bigger jail, a modern, more efficient sheriff's office, increase alternatives to incarceration and examine programs for youths and special populations. The proposal comes after decades of debate about an overcrowded jail that required housing Dutchess inmates around the state at a cost of millions of dollars each year.

Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro outlined to the Legislature Thursday night a $192 million project that, once open in 2021, would begin saving the county $5.3 million per year, even with the cost of repaying the debt for the project, he says. Much of the savings would come from projected improved operations, especially in cutting the cost of housing inmates in jails in other counties, some hours away.

"Building a new facility, that at the end, will reduce total cost, in fact (will) enhance Dutchess County’s criminal justice system, provide for public safety and strengthen our alternatives to incarceration, helping us to break the cycle of crime so that individuals can become sustaining members of our community," Molinaro said. "And when we’re done, this will all amount to taxpayer savings compared to the alternative."

The project cost includes $154,276,000 for the Justice & Transition Center, $36,509,000 for a Law Enforcement Center, $550,000 for special populations and youth funding, and $810,000 in bond-issuing costs.

Legislature Minority Leader Micki Strawinski, D-Red Hook, said, "There is no doubt that improvements and some expansion is needed but I am not convinced that we need the number of beds being proposed." There are "at least two new diversion programs that, so far, are proving to be effective. We need to increase evidence based preventative programs."

The county is under state pressure to build a jail that adequately and safely houses its inmates. The North Hamilton Street jail can house 250 inmates, while nearly 200 additional inmates have been housed in out-of-county facilities, at a cost of about $8 million annually to taxpayers. To address the cost of boarding out inmates, the county installed pods in mid-2015, but that was meant only as a temporary fix. The county Legislature has until April 1 to approve funding for the new jail, or the state could pull its approval of the pods.

"Housing out paralyzes us, and that is not an overstatement," Molinaro said. "Because of all the logistics of housing out, it eats up our resources — time and money — so by housing out, we spend more and are getting much, much less."

The anticipated annual debt would be $9.9 million starting in 2021. As it stands, the county will pay about $20 million for its annual debt service this year. County officials didn't provide figures on debt they expect to come off the books in the coming years.

The proposed facility would have 569 beds in 297,000 square feet, which accounts for special populations and 15 percent growth in incarcerated people over the next 30 years. The current jail size is 134,000 square feet, but that number does not include the additional space from the pods. The four pods are used to help accommodate the current jail population of 424, as of Thursday, with 14 being housed out and two in mental health facilities.

The facility would be more efficiently designed, which could reduce the ratio of inmate to officer from one-to-one to three-to-one. The jail has 233 correction officers, but officials anticipate reducing staffing levels through attrition to 190 eventually.

"Dutchess County has spent tens of millions of dollars on housing out inmates in other counties," she said. "We need to act to build the appropriate facility that will lower costs, improve efficiencies and make sure inmates only have one stay in our jail. We must end the cycle of recidivism and this is why a comprehensive approach to this issue is so critical."

However, Legislator Joel Tyner, D-Clinton, panned the plan.

"Sorry but for all the bells and whistles we saw tonight, their proposal ignores how 80 percent of our jail inmates have yet to go to trial — and ignores how that problem was solved in both the Bronx and Albuquerque — where jail numbers were able to be cut markedly, safely," he said. "Albuquerque actually cut their jail population safely by over 40 percent in just three years this way, with the help of the Vera Institute — this should be happening here — not an unneeded, wasteful, $165 million Taj Mahal jail expansion boondoggle."

If the Legislature approves the plan, the first step would be to demolish the sheriff's office, described as an outdated space, and renovate and expand the former Taylor manufacturing building on Parker Avenue. The county purchased that property with the jail project in mind. Afterward, the Justice and Transition Center would be built, and the 1984 jail section would be demolished and the pods removed. The plans include renovating and using the 1995 section of the jail.

Molinaro said the number of needed beds could drop in the next year as officials get a better grasp on the effectiveness of the programs used to help people avoid jail time. The county's step-by-step plan calls for seeking proposals on the jail design in 2017. These alternatives include programs to help troubled teens by providing cognitive behavioral programming, and contracts in the Town of Poughkeepsie for those picked up on misdemeanor offenses, which allows an offender to abide by restrictions for a reduced sentence.

The county also has a 24-hour Crisis Stabilization Center in the works to provide improved treatment of mentally ill and substance abusers, while encouraging collaboration among health care providers, law enforcement and others. It aims to reduce avoidable hospital visits by 25 percent within five years, and county officials have said they hope to drive down the overall jail population with its institution. The goal is to have the center running by the end of 2016.

"We will spend the next year, 18 months, continuing to build the data and thus the case to argue that, if our numbers are low enough and the rate of growth stabilizes, we will argue with the state not to build that third floor option," Molinaro said. "And that is my intention, but I need the (state) to agree with the temporary housing waiver."

The design has a third floor option with 72 beds that could be withdrawn if the county reduces its jail population, which Alternatives to Incarceration programming has assisted in doing. In 2012, the county's Criminal Justice Council reported that, on average, 600 people daily were being placed in alternative programming. According to county figures, that average in 2015 was 650 people with 2,500 placed on probation. Probation numbers from 2012 weren't readily available Thursday.

Since the pods enabled the majority of inmates to be held in Dutchess County instead of other counties, officials said they've seen the average length of stay drop by about 10 days. Over the last few years, the average daily population has dropped from 474 in 2014 to about 420 in 2016, county figures show.

If the county were to see a continued drop in the incarceration rate over the years through programming, Deputy County Executive William O'Neil said space in the 1995 jail section could be used for other programming other than inmate housing.

"If we could really get the numbers down... we've talked about decommissioning those (100) beds," he said. "We could turn that into a mental health facility, homeless shelter, drug rehab, veterans or some combination thereof."